Caught Between Two Worlds
by Jazzcat
Summary: The conflicting thoughts of Warren Worthington III as he prepares to take the Cure - a Cure that will deprive him of his mutation and turn him back into a human. Or will it? Reprise of the Cure scene from The Last Stand.


_Life as I know it is coming to an end..._

_Again._

Warren Worthington III, the twenty-two-year-old son of a billionaire tycoon, slowly paced the length of the waiting room, his expression as grave as if he was waiting for his own execution. In a way, he felt like he was. He wished the lady assistant would hurry up and announce him so he could get this over with, and he shivered through the long tan jacket which hid his mutation completely.

His mutation - the thing that complicated the daylights out of his life. And yet it _was_ his life. There was no denying it. Just as Time itself had been split into BC and AD, Warren's personal history was divided by BW and AW - Before Wings and After Wings. He'd lived two lives without developing multiple personality disorder. Or, at least, he'd never been officially diagnosed with that particular mental condition.

But now he'd been offered salvation, and the choice to rid himself of the wayward genetic influence over him and the stigma which constantly shadowed him was, in a way, an easy one.

So why was he in a cold sweat now? Why did his nauseous stomach roil and threaten to reject his meager breakfast? If his wings had been unrestrained by the crimping leather harness hidden beneath his expensive shirt, he'd have been folding and unfolding them anxiously against his back. As it was, his rebellious wings were straining against the tight straps, aching to be free and express themselves. He understood now how maddened a dog felt when its tail was held against wagging. It took a toll on him emotionally and made him feel cranky - something he'd learned to put up with and hide fairly well.

In a few moments, this would all be over. Gone would be the unsavory labels his wings attached to him, like "freak," "bird-boy" and "mutant." He could be Warren Worthington III - a normal human being.

Just... normal. Never had being ordinary seemed such a grand thing. In his school days, Warren always aspired to stand out - until a bunch of very un-human feathers sprouted from his back and made that distinction for him. That wasn't exactly what Warren had in mind... He'd have been content with breaking soccer records or maintaining high academic scores and graduating at the top of his class. Maybe a few awards and honors would've been a nice touch. Mutation was overkill, and it'd gotten him expelled from the boarding school anyway. All his hard work had gone up in smoke - like his dreams, like his friendships, like his family. Little had remained intact, and he'd tried to make a life out of what was left.

Warren's heavy tread measured the distance between the walls. One shot of this miraculous cure was supposed to change all that and turn back the proverbial hands of time. Life as he once knew it would resume - with ten years' delay. Humans would accept him again as one of their own and consider him a person: No, better yet, a man. For once, he could enter a room unnoticed and sit down with a marked absence in stares: An almost unimaginable luxury. Then he could be the son his father had always wanted him to be - something having a huge pair of white wings robbed from him.

Thinking about it was only making it worse. Warren sighed and let go of all his thoughts, watching them fly away like confused pigeons. He was tired of wrestling with everything. He'd already made his choice - his wings would go. Maybe his father was right: He'd feel better once it was all over.

The brunette assistant came back at that moment and gave him one of those trite smiles that nurses usually adopted - a smile that curved her glossy lips but didn't touch her sea-green eyes. It was supposed to be reassuring to a nervous patient, but it had the opposite effect on Warren. "They'll see you now. Go on in."

She was rather pretty, Warren noticed, with her curly chocolate-caramel hair ponytailed behind an ornate gold clasp: Simple, but the effect was dramatically appealing, especially when coupled with a breezy aura of Chanel No. 5. How nice it would be if she didn't see him as a patient, or as a mutant, even if he were the billionaire son of Warren Worthington II. He wondered how long it would take her to forget that he'd ever been a mutant, hiding his wings beneath long trenchcoats and worried about molting in public. Then he could ask her out to a nice restaurant like any normal guy, and-

"Warren?" she prompted with uplifted delicate eyebrows, guessing nothing - mercifully - of his thought processes. "They're waiting for you." Another classically medical smile.

Warren drew a deep breath. "Right. Thank you." His voice didn't sound quite his own; it was deeper and huskier than he remembered. He faced the door and set his hand against the pane of glass - something he wasn't supposed to do, but did it really matter? The janitor would come by late Tuesday night, after the offices were closed, and erase the last evidence of Warren's having been there as a mutant with a bottle of 409 and a rag. Any traces of other mutants who entered as mutants and departed as ordinary humans would also be eradicated. How would they feel, walking into this same situation? As if they were betraying themselves? Relieved?

Warren had no idea. He himself was experiencing a whole spectrum of emotion. Yet his body, it seemed, tried to override his will; every fiber of his being cried out in loud protest, and Warren had to force his stiff joints to move, as if he were suffering from mild paralysis. Inside, Warren heard the distinct voices of his father and Dr. Rao, one of the head doctors at Worthington Labs.

"You sure you want to start with him?" she questioned in her strangely intriguing Indian accent.

"I think it's important, yes," Warren II decreed, as if it were some business decision. In a way, it was. Having a mutant son wasn't exactly good press. But having a mutant son who took the cure his own company produced could work to his advantage.

Their low tones indicated they didn't want Warren overhearing the exchange, but they didn't know what it was like to be a mutant and they easily forgot subtle things - like his heightened senses, including his mildly enhanced hearing. Odd, how they didn't treat him with special consideration because of his mutation. They simply viewed him through the eyes of a _Homo Sapien_. Warren caught every word as he pushed open the door. Moving in slow motion, he stepped into the coldly metallic room.

Before he could react to either statement, both sets of eyes came up and pinned him.

"Hello, Warren." Dr. Rao didn't even endeavor to favor him with her trite smile as she strode off to the metal trolley containing her necessary supplies. Warren wondered if her attitude would change at all once he was no longer a mutant...

"How are you, son?" Warren's attention shifted as his father strode confidently towards him, putting an arm over his shoulders - avoiding the wings, of course, which he wouldn't dare touch, as if they were contagious, malignant, cancerous growths - and steering him towards the upright restraining table in the center of the room.

Warren's eyes riveted on the gurney. It struck him as a kind of altar upon which he would sacrifice his wings for the sake of acceptance among humans, and his throat went dry. Warren's bewildered mind noted the unusual fatherly gesture of an arm wrapped around his shoulders, but though he was desperate for that kind of caring affection from his father, he couldn't receive it: It was too forced to be genuine, and Warren suddenly felt sicker. It furrowed his brow into a slight frown as he watched his father in action.

This same demeanor reminded Warren of the times he'd watched his father convincing potential buyers or investors from other large corporations, putting on his most outwardly friendly and professionally amiable front to help sell himself and his pharmaceutical company. He was campaigning then. And he was campaigning now, to his own son.

Before Warren could gather wits enough to answer, his father was plying him with another politely interested question. "You sleep well?"

Warren glanced sideways at him, then quickly lowered his eyes, nodding. "Yeah," he lied.

The reason he hadn't slept well was right in front of him: The huge picture windows displayed the world Warren was giving up, without recourse. Warren was unprepared for the effect the cloudless blue sky had on him. It brought back very recent memories of his last flight - the one he'd taken after midnight, when the city of San Francisco was calm and still, and only occasional red or white beacons moving like dots on a black radar screen indicated a lone car on a highway. The soft mist over him tickled and teased his young face and ruffled delicately through his feathers in flight. Immersed in his element, Warren was totally, completely at peace, flapping his wings once in a while, but mostly letting the wind carry him where it would. The few silver clouds were well-beaten by the persistent breeze until the patterns of lines resembled pictures he'd seen of windblown red-gold deserts. The city lights below twinkled like a second spread of stars, glittering gold and silver as he soared, caught between two worlds.

Warren knew he couldn't have both worlds: It was one or the other. The Powers That Be demanded total devotion to whichever world he chose. He'd tried living in both, and the strain of it was enough to tear a man apart. And that's all he was - a man. There were limits to his abilities to bear earthly burdens, whether he was a "superhuman" mutant or not. All these things had run though his mind long after he'd landed, when he sat on the balcony railing of his penthouse suite and contemplated until the newborn sun chased darkness into the next hemisphere, and his alarm clock called him inside to prepare for his appointment.

His father was speaking again. "Everything's going to be fine. I promise."

Warren tore his eyes from the infinite sky and turned to face his father. "Yeah," he croaked.

He'd chosen this world: The world of his father. Two male white-coated lab assistants appeared out of nowhere and stood behind him. His father was staring at him searchingly, and Warren again felt his blood run cold. The walls were closing in on him.

"You ready?" asked Warren Jr.

Warren tried to smile, but it turned his tight features into a grimace. He could only nod as hands took the coat from his shoulders, then peeled away his shirt to expose two masses of white feathers strapped firmly against his back.

There was no avoiding the expression of sick disgust that crossed Warren Jr.'s face at the sight of his son's mutation. That his own flesh and blood could be so hideously inhuman ate at something deep in his soul, and Warren felt the shame as keenly as his father conveyed it. He lowered his head, embarrassed as if he were entirely naked, and he allowed the two men to lead him - much like a prisoner - to the upright table, and Warren stepped onto the low platform. The assistants were gentle enough, but firm, and Warren could not ignore the rattling of leather and chains as they strapped his arms down.

Dr. Rao worked with swift efficiency in her preparations, opening a labeled case with tubes containing a clear liquid, marked with the triangular symbol Warren identified as the Cure. His heart rate quickened. Everything was happening too fast. Beyond the tower, from several floors below, he could hear the angry shouting from protesting mutants demonstrating outside, mingled with the faint wail of sirens: Probably security. Likely police had been coordinated by the city to patrol the area around Worthington Labs on the day the Cure became available - a precautionary measure in case dangerous mutants got out of hand. And rioted like ordinary humans.

Warren's wings pulled at his harness, and his muscles stiffened against the restraining cuffs. His fist clenched: He wanted to get away. He didn't want to be here, of all places. The infinite sky was still before him - an irresistible realm of glorious freedom and soothing, yet exhilarating, wind. It was calling to him. Every ounce of Warren's will was needed to keep him from instinctively fighting the restraints, but the effort of staying put caused him to hyperventilate.

That hyperventilation increased when he heard the metallic click of the Cure cartridge into Dr. Rao's large gun-like syringe.

As if sensing his sudden anxiety, she looked over at him and explained, "The transformation can be a little jarring."

Tendrils of panic surfaced in Warren's chest and coiled around his windpipe. _A little jarring?!_ He was basically getting a whole string of DNA ripped out of his body. That was sure to be more than a little jarring. Suddenly the restraining cuffs were making more sense...

Dr. Rao uncapped the long needle. Warren didn't like needles. This one was headed for his arm, and images flashed through Warren's mind - of extreme pain, inescapable; of his wings suddenly withering and white feathers falling like autumn leaves on the silver floor. Would it leave two large wounds on his back? Or huge vertical scars, to forever show where his wings once resided? He wouldn't have the healing properties in his blood to seal up the openings, once the Cure had taken effect. The moment that needle entered his skin, he was going to be irreversibly changed forever...

Dr. Rao was approaching, and Warren's eyes darted from the needle to his father. He tried to flinch away, but the restraints held him in place against his will. Warren glanced at the needle again and grimaced. Time was running out...

"Hey Dad... can we talk about this for a second?" The words were accompanied by a nervous little smile, but his whole attention was focused on Dr. Rao, who was closing in on him with the Cure in hand.

His father was unmoved. "We've talked about it, son. It'll all be over soon."

Warren's pulse progressively quickened as the final seconds of his mutant life ticked away. He opened and closed his mouth, just trying to breathe. He felt lightheaded and sick. Something cold swiped the inside of his elbow, and a gasp left Warren's parted lips. Icy adrenaline shocked through him. He realized they had swabbed his skin a second before Dr. Rao set her latex-gloved hand lightly against his forearm - an unnervingly alien touch - and raised the syringe towards its intended target: His very soul.

"Everything's going to be fine." His father's voice was artificially calming, yet insistent.

The needle made for Warren's elbow, and something inside him snapped. "Wait."

The needle stopped an inch from his vein. Dr. Rao's eyes flicked to his, and she backed off slightly with the needle when she saw his expression, and how his eyes were rolling back in mild terror. His whole body was reacting to the situation, trembling with repressed anxiety. Warren glanced at his father, his dark eyes resembling those of a wild animal. "I can't... do this."

"Warren, calm down..."

"No... I... I can't... do this..." He was beginning to struggle, the chains rattling against his bulging muscles.

"Yes you can..."

His father wasn't helping. He had to get out of there, now. Frantically Warren turned on the assistants, who were still hanging on to his arms. "Guys, just get me out..."

They weren't helping either. They were holding him down and his pleas fell on deaf ears.

"Just relax, son..."

Warren's voice came out in a terrified whimper, even as he fought to be free. "No..."

Warren II tried to assert his calming authority. "Take it easy... calm down..."

Frustrated anger overrode Warren's fear, and he raised his voice to a shout. "I can't do this!"

"I promise you," declared Warren II. "It will be fine..."

A primal cry of desperate agony tore from his throat. _"DAD!"_

"Warren, relax..."

It was too late. Fury surged through Warren, tightening his neck muscles as he put forth all his strength against the leather cuffs. Warren wrenched his arms free, his wings burst the straps of the harness, and Warren slammed his forearms into the chests of the assistants. They flew backwards and landed on the floor as Warren leaped from the gurney and landed firmly on the ground and flared his wings wide, his chest heaving. They spanned to their massive spread of sixteen feet and moved on their own as if they were living, sentient things.

Dr. Rao had darted backwards, out of Warren's way, and now she stared at him, and his wings; stunned and a little frightened. Behind him, the assistants were slowly climbing to their feet, but they respected Warren now as much more than the docile young man they'd mistaken him for. They didn't dare venture too close to him.

Warren stood there, his wings extending and contracting slightly with each labored breath in the deep silence that followed. No one seemed sure what to do with Warren now. Warren had been pushed to his limits, and something inside of him had been unleashed - something even he didn't understand - and there was no going back. Warren was who he was, and not even a Cure could change that.

Warren Jr. was horrified. He made one last bid for Warren's cooperation.

"Warren, it's a better life. It's what we all want."

Everything became startlingly clear. Warren looked his father in the eyes. "No," he replied, and pain pierced him as he severed a link between them - and the world of humans. "It's what _you_ want."

There. It was done. For another breathless instant, they stared at each other, and then Warren tucked his wings behind him and sprinted for the window.

His father realized what he was about to do a split second before it happened. _"Warren no!"_

But there was no stopping Warren: He leapt upwards and plunged through the wall of glass with a graceful, swan-like swimmer's stroke, and he dove towards the ground in a glittering shower of glass shards that caught the sunlight and winked around him like rainbow prisms. Wind blasted him in the face and tore through his hair and fluttered his white feathers, and the ground rushed up at him at an alarming rate.

Lines of people below were screaming, seeing someone dive out a window high above them and probably thinking someone was committing suicide. They cowered and ran out of Warren's supposed landing path.

But Warren wasn't headed for the ground. He wasn't going to spend another minute on land if he didn't have to. Careening upwards, he flared his wings until he caught an updraft that carried him over civilization, and away he flapped into the blue skies.

He soared effortlessly over the Golden Gate Bridge, not even looking down. His eyes were on the horizon, where a cloud bank hinted at the possible beginnings of a storm, but if it were indeed a storm, it was hours away. There was plenty of time to safely fly, and Warren flapped his wings more than usual just for the pure sensation of the wind in his feathers, to work off his adrenaline - and to cool himself off. He was covered in sweat, but there was a red fire burning in his chest, and it took over an hour of aimless flying before its grip on him began to dissipate.

And when it did, it left him feeling... broken. Shattered. All the strength suddenly departed his limbs, and only his soaring wings catching the breeze kept him afloat. But it wouldn't keep him afloat long. Warren looked down and wearily scanned his surroundings, hoping to find a place to alight before his limp wings gave out completely.

He was gliding over evergreen mountains by then, and he spied a rocky gray ledge jutting out of the pines. Wheeling around, he aimed for the narrow strip of rock and dropped into a very precise landing on the precarious outcropping. Immediately his knees gave way, and he collapsed kneeling on the precipice, balanced on his hands while his white wings fanned over him, taking their time to settle into position against his back.

It was then that Warren finally gave in to the tears that had been trapped inside him for too long.

Alone on that ledge overlooking the world, the full weight of the morning's events crashed down on him, and he rocked back and pulled his knees to his chest, sobbing. His wings wrapped themselves firmly around him in a feathered cocoon of white darkness. Tears poured down as every second of what happened after he stepped into that metallic room replayed in slow motion in his mind, his father's words echoing in his ears. _"Warren, it's a better life... It's what we all want..."_

A better life? How could he know? He'd never been a mutant. He didn't know what it was like to feel the wind in his feathers, or revel in freedom, or read a license plate number at two hundred yards away. Beyond that, Warren had _instincts_... feelings that he'd never possessed before his mutation began to manifest. At least, to his knowledge. What if they'd been there all along, and he'd never noticed... because he'd never been anything _but_ a mutant?

That was the truth. Warren was born a mutant. And it was that realization, coupled with the knowledge that the world would always remember him as being a mutant whether he was one or not, that caused him to suddenly reject the idea of taking the Cure. That, and when the moment arrived, all his instincts kicked in - instincts that reminded him of who he was.

But now, because of that, he was alone.

The day he'd first discovered his wings as a boy, he _felt_ alone - separated by genetics from his biological family. Hiding his mutation had been his one hope of keeping reality at bay, and it had more or less worked - until his father pushed open the bathroom door and found him standing in a mess of feathers and blood after Warren had sawed off those resiliently determined wings again. A few of his friends at school had the misfortune of growing up in broken homes, where the parents had divorced or, even more rarely, one of them had died young. He'd also met the occasional orphan. Warren, on the other hand, had two parents and no family whatsoever. By an accident in genetics, he was alone.

An accident... which the Cure was supposed to cure. Only it had become painfully clear to Warren that nothing could repair _this_ accident - more so in the last moments before he crashed out that window. People could be born with poor eyesight and have it corrected through laser surgery, but that was not an adequate comparison to this. Those with limited sight didn't develop changes in their whole body to cope. Warren had changed in every way: His metabolism burned fat right off of him. He had certain enhanced senses and instincts. He had hollow bones which made him capable of flight. And, of course, he had wings. Poor eyesight didn't cause anyone to _grow_ anything.

Warren shivered and hugged his knees closer, shifting the veil of feathers enough to let in a little light. Odd to think that, right now, he could've been calmly eating dinner with his father, planning to obtain a much more ordinary wardrobe that wasn't altered to fit a winged mutant's lifestyle, discussing the stock market and wondering how many calories were in a serving of creme bruleé. If he'd made a different choice, his life would have been changed forever...

Yet there were certain things that could never be erased. Despite the fanciful theories of authors such as H.G. Wells, the hands of time moved forward, never backwards.

Impatiently, Warren rubbed his palms hard over his face and sniffed, then stood up and flared his wings to catch the wind. He was who he was, and he was no longer caught between two worlds. He belonged to the world of mutants.

Warren crouched and sprang over the edge of the precipice, dropping only a few feet before his wings caught invisible air currents. He sailed over the quiet mountains. As his view of the bay was restored, Warren was surprised to see the sun setting, and even from this great distance, he could pick out the orange glow on the mirrored round surface of Worthington Labs.

Warren shifted his course and flew straight towards where he knew his penthouse was located. If he belonged to the world of mutants, it was high time he joined the rest of them. He had a lot of packing to do.


End file.
